A million recommends for you, because you included a picture. WIN.

Shh, I have cousins who I'm trying to train out of doing this, on the principle that unless she has feathers, lays eggs, and craps on the windscreen of your car in mid-flight, SHE IS NOT A BIRD. For some reason, they seem not to appreciate my finely nuanced logic.

I hate to admit this, but I went to see her show at the O2 on her Speak Now tour a couple of years ago (before she had completely jumped the shark), and at one point between songs, she just blithely announced, "I always have such a good time here in London that I've decided to rename it Fundon," and skipped off…

That was my thought. The decision to put her in that outfit just seems bizarre. I have never in my life got worked up about who does what with the Union Jack, but seriously. Stop wearing our flag, Swift. You are not Geri Halliwell, and never will be.

Yeah, I think it was important to get that perspective. Also, a few years ago during final year History at school, we did one module on civil rights in the USA, and briefly looked at US/Native American relations to begin with, which made me think of this again and prompted me to go away and do some more research about…

Must be. I will cherish forever the look on their faces when the group from the Crow Reservation came to visit, with fresh game to fulfil the participants' need for MEEAAAT, and the university professor calmly and reasonably explained about how his ancestors were evicted from the area at gunpoint (despite the fact…

I loved Frontier House when it was on. I very much enjoyed watching the spoiled Californians whingeing about how they didn't have enough supplies, didn't have a big enough budget, and didn't have enough to eat and were underweight, and splashed out a big part of their budget on calling a doctor, who basically told…

I can never fully get on board with the whole Tom Hiddleston bandwagon. I mean, I love him, but not that much. Obviously he's a fantastically amazingly wonderfully talented actor (to quote Anne Hathaway in Becoming Jane: too many adjectives), and he seems like a nice, well-meaning individual human being, but ... he's…

Most of them are freaky, but Sorcia's is absolutely fucking terrifying, with the little girl that wasn't in the bathroom and the China one as close second and thirds.

This is spooky, rather than blood-curdlingly terrifying. It happened about ten years or so ago, maybe a bit longer. My family has been on the service crew of a Scout campsite outside London for many years, so we grew up around this site and got to know it pretty well. The campsite backs onto Biggin Hill Airport,…

when I was in Romania, I was told explicitly that Roma beggars are less than human

I hope to God she doesn't (a) have her boobs get a size or so bigger as a PMS symptom and (b) get her period about three days after the show. Eesh. Owowowowow.

My first big teenage celebrity crush was, eesh, Orlando Bloom. THIS WAS LITERALLY TEN YEARS AGO and it was embarrassing at the time, right from the word go, to the extent that I would not own up to it for ages, because seriously, that Elf dude poncing about in a silly blond wig? Yeah, glad I got over that one.

I have climbed that section of the Great Wall at Badaling, from Beijing, and I had enough trouble hauling myself up the foot-high forty-five-plus-degree steps up to the watchtower at the top of the hill, without having to carry some entitled little ass up there on my shoulders as well. Come on, Bieber. Mulan did not…

I have climbed that section of the Great Wall at Badaling, from Beijing, and I had enough trouble hauling myself up the foot-high forty-five-plus-degree steps up to the watchtower at the top of the hill, without having to carry some entitled little ass up there on my shoulders as well. Come on, Bieber. Mulan did not…

I'm sure they would. But they don't have their own parliament/assembly. Yet. :)

Yes, I know, but my point is, in an ideal world, each one of the four countries of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland would be represented in the monarch's heraldry. I'm not Welsh, I'm English, and I get that Wales did get the tradition of naming the heir to the throne the Prince or Princess of…

I love that they had to invent a coat of arms for the Middletons before The Wedding, because God forbid the future king's consort's family shouldn't have their own heraldry, and also for administrative outdated protocol reasons like this. But then, to be fair to Kate, heraldry has been around for so long, and is taken…

I've been hissed at, very occasionally, by men here in the UK. I don't know about other countries, but hissing at women is definitely a thing in Egypt, or at least, certainly in quite touristy areas. I was working in Luxor earlier this year, and my friend and I could not go into town and walk down the main street…

I know it won't be like this, but I would love it to be a series of wildlife documentaries about the various magical beasts discussed in the book, narrated by David Attenborough, as per everything everyone knows about natural history. Or possibly something like Chris Packham going off to look for dragons, discussing…